TAES

Towards an Excellent Service (TAES)

As a result of our first partnership self-assessment and external validation the West Yorkshire Sport Partnership are proud to have acheived a rating of 'Good'.

If you would like to read the external validators report.

For more information about Towards and Excellent Service and to find out what this rating means please read on.

TAES is an acronym, which represents sport and leisure organisations and partnerships working Towards an Excellent Service. TAES is not a 'product', or a 'scheme' or even 'a process'; it is a 'journey' of improvement in all aspects of the way the organisation or partnership operates, in order to achieve excellent results.

There is no end to this 'journey', it is an ongoing process of improvement because:

  • The needs of the community change continually
  • Customers' expectations change continuously
  • There are always ways in which the effectiveness and efficiency of an organisation or partnership can improve

The pursuit of excellence underpins success in all organisations (and individuals). It is essential for publicly funded sport and leisure organisations and partnerships, because:

  • It creates the capacity for the organisation or partnership to achieve its stated outcomes and 'make a difference' to people's lives
  • It improves staff satisfaction and helps to ensure sustainable jobs with personal development opportunities
  • The current external environment in which the publicly funded sport and leisure industry operates demands 'continuous improvement'

What does TAES bring?

TAES (Towards an Excellence Service) provides a Framework and tools to assist sport and recreation organisations to pursue Excellence through continuous improvement. The Framework is based on recognised best practice and is tailored to meet the specific needs of the sport and recreation industry. Specific versions of the TAES Framework have been developed for County Sports Partnerships (CSPs), National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and local authority sport and recreation and local authority cultural services.

The TAES Framework achieves three objectives:

  • To provide a basis for Self Assessment, improvement planning and best practice benchmarking
  • To provide a vehicle through which the national and regional priorities for sport and physical activity could be achieved, alongside local priorities in each community
  • To provide a basis for future inspection or monitoring processes should these be developed in the future

It has been agreed that all CSPs will use the TAES Framework as they evolve to become fully operational. All 45 will achieve at least 'fair' overall by March 2006, following a validated Self Assessment.

Download the Sport England presentation: 'Implementing TAES for County Sports Partnerships'

TAES and West Yorkshire Sport

The TAES process challanges the West Yorkshire Partnership not just the core team of West Yorkshire Sport. It is important to be clear about the distinction between West Yorkshire Sport as an organisation and the West Yorkshire Sports Partnership. West Yorkshire Sport is simply the organisation that is employed to coordinate, sometimes lead and, where gaps in provision exist, be a provider on behalf of the WYSP. An apt description of West Yorkshire Sport is that of secretariat for the WYSP.

The understanding of WYSP is eased when looking at its current structure.

The presentation below outlines the implications of TAES for WYSP and describes the methods the WYSP will adopt to undertake the TAES 'journey'.

Download a presentation regarding TAES and West Yorkshire Sport Partnership.

The West Yorkshire Sport Partnership (WYSP) 'Steering Group' undertook the self assessment portion of TAES in mid February and a questionnaire was completed by various sectors of the WYSP giving a 'picture' of opinions regarding different aspects of the WYSP. The results of the questionnaire were a very positive starting point - click here to view the results.

For more information regarding TAES in West Yorkshire please contact West Yorkshire Sport on 01484 234087 or email wys.admin@wysport.co.uk

Please click here for more information regarding the TEAS scheme.